


Keeping Score

by thundercaya



Series: The Workplace Warzone [14]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:26:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercaya/pseuds/thundercaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who knew lunch with Hamilton could be so informative?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Score

Thomas Jefferson didn't normally eat in The Capitol Restaurant, though it wasn't from an aversion to the food. Lunch time was his time, and he preferred to spend it away from the people he worked with, one James Madison being the notable exception. Today Madison was home sick, a rarity--the staying home part, not the being sick part--which left Jefferson without a lunch date. Not in the mood to drive off somewhere just to eat alone, he opted to buy something to take back to his desk, where he'd check in with Madison via text. As he walked in he spotted Alexander Hamilton seated by himself, a mass of open notebooks spread out on his table next to a drink in a disposable cup and a plate containing fries, a burger, and a pickle spear, all of which looked untouched.

Jefferson's first instinct was to pretend he hadn't seen the man, but Hamilton's notebooks caught his eye. They were covered in numbers and... was that Gregg shorthand? Jefferson was more familiar with Pitman himself. He wondered if Hamilton was working on some kind of money thing. Maybe working out some new tax he wanted to suggest. Whatever it was, Jefferson decided he should get a jump on it.

"What are you working on?" Jefferson asked.

Hamilton looked up. "Secretary Jefferson," he greeted before looking back down. "Don't worry about it."

Jefferson leaned on an empty chair. "See, that makes me worry about it."

"It's not... government," Hamilton said, looking up again. "It's a personal project that doesn't involve you." He averted his gaze. "...Directly."

"And what does _that_ mean?" 

Hamilton flushed. "I'm trying to figure out the best way to calculate our scores."

"Scores for what?"

"This ongoing back-and-forth banter I have with you and Mr. Madison."

Jefferson scoffed. "You keep track of that? That's ridiculous." He pulled out the chair and sat down. "James and I are winning, right?"

"That's what I can't quite figure out," Hamilton said. "By your team total, you absolutely are, but that's hardly fair since it's your two brains against my one."

Jefferson grabbed a couple of Hamilton's fries. He expected a snappy comment about how he could _surely_ afford his own lunch, or even a dirty look, but flipping through one of his notebooks, Hamilton didn't seem to notice.

"So first, I thought I'd split up your points by who scored them," Hamilton continued, "but the problem is there's a lot of setting up that goes on between the two of you, some really seamless assists. I can't really say if the point should go to the one who sets up the shot or the one who goes in for the kill. "

Jefferson went for the pickle spear next.

"No one else around here has a connection like that, though I do experience that kind of wavelength synching with my wife when she and I are on the same side of something, so I guess it's not that surprising that you two have it."

Jefferson almost said something about the implication of that statement. He was well aware that everyone knew there was _something_ between him and Madison,  but that didn't mean anyone had a right to _talk_ about it. He held his tongue, however, because he was reaching for Hamilton's burger now and didn't want to draw attention to himself.

"I thought about assigning partial points to assists," Hamilton went on, "but that just gave you _more_ points, so back to square one. I did consider giving you each the average of your combined score, which made me the winner, but honestly, Secretary Jefferson, that's unfair to you. Mr. Madison's offense is honestly exquisite, but his defense is sorely lacking. Put simply, he's an easy target. It's not even that he has a lot of weak points, it's more that if you hit him enough times, he literally _stops_ defending himself. Anyone can get shut down by a solid hit, sure. And let's say I landed three or four minor hits in a single conversation. That might throw you off enough to not fight back, too. But Mr. Madison is so _bothered_ by things for so _long_ that the cumulative effect is amplified so that three or four hits in three or four _days_ leave him unable to land any shots of his own while still being able to receive them. He goes from an asset to a liability. Even if he does manage to bounce back a little, he never _really_ recovers until the weekend, or until he misses work. Like today."

Jefferson wasn't finished with the burger, but he couldn't let that statement slide. He set it back down on the plate before saying; "Mr. Madison is recovering from the flu, not your juvenile insults."

"Oh, I'm not saying that he's faking," Hamilton assured, not even looking at the half-eaten burger. "Just that the break will do him well. Look at this." He flipped a few pages in the notebook he was holding before shoving it in Jefferson's face. "This is leading up to that time he got that stomach bug. Look how few points he was getting compared to mine, and as soon as he got back he destroyed me."

Jefferson squinted at the mess of numbers and scribbles which undoubtedly looked perfectly organized to Hamilton. "I have no idea what I'm looking at."

"It's Gre--"

"Gregg shorthand. I know." Jefferson pulled the notebook from Hamilton's hands to get a better look at it. "Not my favored method but... Wait, he made you cry?"

Hamilton yanked the notebook back so violently he almost knocked his drink over on the others. Jefferson supposed that would be a victory in itself, but he also felt like those notebooks needed to be preserved for posterity. Future generations would never believe that someone so intense could exist, much less hold office.

"That's _not_ what that says," Hamilton said, though he did not offer an alternate reading.

"Honestly, this is a lot of thought to give to people you hate," Jefferson said. He picked the burger back up and took another bite.

"Don't flatter yourself," Hamilton said, grabbing one of the other notebooks. "You're not the only people I keep score on."

"Yeah? Who else?"

"Well, this one is Burr." He flashed a page at Jefferson. "Ours is a simple one-to-one scale. We have that kind of relationship." He pointed at another notebook. "Then there's Washington."

"Seriously?"

"I had to put a lot of thought into that one," Hamilton said. "I respect the man way too much to take shots at him, but that doesn't mean I don't think of them. I keep them to myself, but sometimes they're really good, so of course I'd rather reward myself for them. But if I don't say anything, I rob him of the opportunity to retaliate, so I only award myself partial points."

"So you're racking up partial points while he keeps a score of zero in a game he doesn't know he's playing?" Jefferson asked. He eyed Hamilton's drink. Hamilton hadn't taken a sip from it since Jefferson sat down, but that didn't mean he hadn't touched it before. Madison would never take a risk like that, but Jefferson thought it was worth it.

"His score isn't zero," Hamilton corrected. "He lands hits sometimes, though I don't know if he knows he's doing it. Regardless, I give him full points."

"Well, this is all very interesting, Secretary Hamilton," Jefferson said, "but there's one problem you haven't addressed. How do you account for the fact that you have twice as many opportunities to score points than either James or I do?

Hamilton frowned. "What? No. You two have the point advantage."

"In terms of... vantage points from which to spot them, yes, but you have access to more potential targets than we do."

"Okay, but I'm still trying to hit them all by myself."

"That doesn't matter in a game with no time limit. Look, if you go into a shooting range by yourself, every target is open to you, and really, in this case you're walking into two shooting ranges. James and I walk into the same shooting range, and any target I hit is no longer available to him. Let's say I say 'Hamilton, you talk too much'"--Hamilton opened his mouth to argue, but Jefferson raised a hand to silence him--" _in a clever enough way_ to get a point. James can't just say 'yeah, you talk too much.'"

"He literally _does_ that all the time," Hamilton pointed out.

"But you don't award him extra points."

Hamilton lifted a finger, ready to protest, then crossed his arms and looked away instead. "True..."

"So if I hit one of your targets," Jefferson continued, "I take away his chance to hit it. No one else you go up against has that problem. So that has to factor into your calculations."

Hamilton picked up the notebook for Madison and Jefferson, gestured with it as if he were going to say something, then set it back down. He opened it to the last page with writing on it and tapped it a few times with his finger. Jefferson had time to finish the last of Hamilton's fries before the man ripped the page out of the notebook and tore it in half. "I have to think about this more," Hamilton said.

Jefferson smiled and grabbed Hamilton's drink. "Let me know when you figure out how many points I get for this." He took a sip through the straw, then stood up and walked away.

***

Back in his office, Jefferson set the stolen drink on his desk before sitting down and taking out his phone. He pulled up his conversation with Madison and shot him a text

_How are you doing?_

A few minutes later the reply came in.

_If I didn't have to look at my phone to read your text I wouldn't know what day it is._

That was about normal for a sick day, though it also meant Madison wouldn't be able to follow if Jefferson tried to explain to him what he and Hamilton had discussed. Not that he could really condense it into a text anyway, but he _had_ to tell someone. He decided he'd give Madison more of a rundown in person once he was feeling better. For now he said; _Apparently Hamilton spends his lunch break trying to calculate whether you're an asset or a liability._

This reply came much faster, presumably because Madison was already awake. _I assume you subsequently killed him for my honor._

_No, but I did eat his lunch right in front of him without him noticing._

_Bravo. Now let me sleep._

Jefferson smiled and texted back; _Love you too._

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't tell me I don't know anything about The Capitol. I know I don't know anything about The Capitol.


End file.
